New Philadelphia City Council recently increased Mayor Mike Taylor’s annual salary to $51,874 despite a recommendation by the city’s law director.

In neighboring Dover, Mayor Richard Homrighausen also received a raise. He began the new year with an annual salary of $78,224 — an increase of $1,534 over the $76,690 he received in 2011 and 2012.

The difference: Homrighausen’s raise was approved before he took office; Taylor received his raise in-term.

New Philadelphia city officials say a 5th District Court of Appeals ruling has created a loophole in Ohio law that prohibits elected officials from giving themselves raises while in office. And the raises, they contend, don’t equal the playing field.

Should the mayors of Tuscarawas County’s two largest cities be paid equally, even if one city is the county seat and the other operates a plant that generates electricity?

ALL ABOUT TIMING

Such questions were raised when New Philadelphia City Council ignored the advice of Law Director Marvin Fete in granting raises to the mayor and four other officials (three elected, one appointed) retroactive to Jan. 1.

Fete said that although the practice of granting raises in-term is legal, which he justified by the Ohio 5th District Court of Appeals ruling, it is his personal opinion that it is not good public policy. “It is for this reason that I, as an elected official, have chosen not to accept an in-term pay raise for myself or any of my staff,” Fete said prior to council’s action granting the raises Jan. 14.

“Taxpayers do not like to see retroactive in-term raises granted to elected officials,” he added.

Kent Scarrett, director of communications for the Ohio Municipal League, said the state Municipal League doesn’t take a stance on the issue. “We defer this type of interpretation to each law director for each community,” he said, adding that it is up to each entity to determine and define the pay structures that meet Ohio law.

While New Philadelphia’s officials — the mayor, auditor, City Council president, council clerk and treasurer — were granted retroactive annual pay raises during their current terms, most of Dover’s elected officials also will be receiving annual increases this year.

Fete has advocated doing away with in-term pay raises for New Philadelphia’s elected officials and asked that council review salaries of all elected officials and consider putting them on par with similar-sized communities.

“If you look at nearby cities, such as Dover, and similar-sized communities, the wages for elected officials in New Philadelphia are substantially behind those of other communities our size,” he noted.

New Philadelphia City Council’s Salary Committee is reviewing the issue.

Homrighausen explained that Dover City Council normally sets the wages for the next term of office for elected officials prior to the election for that office. He said that action is taken prior to the election so taxpayers will know what the wages are going to be.

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He added that Dover City Council never grants wage increases during an elected term. “The way I’ve always read the statute, it prohibits elected officials from having their salaries increased during the course of their term — that’s why we do it before the next term starts, and the salaries are set for four years.”

APPLES TO APPLES

New Philadelphia Councilman John Zucal, salary committee chairman, said Dover’s method of granting salary increases is something that will be looked at as his committee resumes its work.

Zucal said that, in many ways, salaries and salary differences in his city versus those of other cities led to the formation of the committee. He said its goal, in addition to examining salaries, is to “recruit and retain the best people in leadership positions.”

Zucal is counting on information being prepared by the Ohio Municipal League about salaries of elected officials throughout the state to help his committee come up with some fair wages. Those figures, based upon a recent survey, are expected to be released in March.

Results of the Municipal League study “will allow us to look beyond Dover, and to look at comparable cities with similar demographics,” Zucal said.

He added that salaries will be looked at, and adjusted if necessary based upon the information they have and the city’s financial position at the time.

Zucal said his presumption is that, in most cases, there is a need to raise and adjust. But notes that the city can’t do all salaries at the same time.

“We need to set priorities,” Zucal said. “We’re not playing catch-up in one year.”

Taylor, who is in the second year of his second four-year term, said one of the reasons his salary is at its current level is because a 2007 ordinance that granted pay raises to all non-bargaining and elected officials excluded the mayor. “So for a three-year period there was no pay increase for the mayor, so that prevents that salary from increasing,” he said.

Taylor said some previous mayors didn’t take a raise and when no pay increase is taken, the salary doesn’t rise. What happens, he explained, is that the salaries of department heads (who work for the mayor) increase while the mayor’s doesn’t and the gap grows. In New Philadelphia, all department heads earn more than the mayor — even with his new pay increase.

So what’s a fair salary? Taylor said he believes a fair salary for the mayor of New Philadelphia, which is Tuscarawas County’s seat, is at least $70,000.

While Taylor said it is not his goal to bring the mayor’s salary up, he noted that “it’s something that’s been discussed in City Council.” It was discussed during his first four years in office, but nothing came of it.

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Taylor believes now that a professional study needs to be done “to determine what would be a fair salary range for this particular job, based on comparables,” referring to comparable cities, with comparable populations and comparable wages.

Taylor said the primary differences between Dover and New Philadelphia are that New Philadelphia’s population is about a third larger, and the city’s workforce is larger.

The only thing Dover has that New Philadelphia doesn’t have, he added, is a Municipal Light Plant.

TOP JOB, TOP SALARY?

New Philadelphia’s ordinance granting pay raises to the five officials is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2012. “That covered the balance of employees in the city who had not been given any type of a pay increase for 2012,” Taylor said. “All of the others had been dealt with either through the bargaining contract — by agreement for last year — or the non-bargaining were dealt with much earlier in the year last year,” he added.

Last year’s budget, Taylor said, was done with a hypothetical increase of 3 percent, “so budget-wise, we were good for anything between zero and 3 percent to have a balanced budget.” No further pay increase ordinances for New Philadelphia elected officials are being considered.

In 2011, Dover approved the 2012 pay raises for the city’s ward council members and council clerk. It kept the salaries for the mayor, auditor and law director at their 2011 levels during 2012. However, it also established raises for 2013 and will again in 2014 and 2015.

Both Taylor and Homrighausen consider themselves chief executive officers of their respective cities, and believe that the real disparity in their salaries is that neither is on par with those being offered to CEOs in the private sector.

Homrighausen also points out that he has the added responsibilities of the Municipal Light Plant, and “there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t get mail concerning the light plant.”

He has testified before the U.S. Senate four times, and the U.S. House of Representatives once, and in essence, acts as the city’s lobbyist for the power plant. “And it’s because of my testimony that our light plant is still in existence,” he said, noting that the city received an exemption from most of the Clean Air Act regulations “because we generate less than 25 megawatts.”

He also has been president for 13 years of the Ohio Municipal Electric Association, has been active in American Electric Power, and encourages management level employees of the Municipal Light Plant and its electric distribution system to get involved, which they are.

Homrighausen pointed out that neither he nor the auditor or law director received a raise last year because non-bargaining employees took no raises in 2011, the unions took a salary freeze, and he gave his 2011 increase back. “So in keeping with our commitment to our employees we requested no raise for last year, but I believe it will be 2 percent over the next three years.”

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Homrighausen’s annual salary is slated to be $79,789 in 2014, and $81,834 in 2015. He recalls that during his first four years in office, his salary was supposed to increase by 4 percent each year, but he reduced it to 2 percent increases “to show that its got to start at the top, and in effect, lead said policy for the city.”

The mayor, who is in the second year of his sixth four-year term, was paid $39,000 when he took office. He said it took 12 to 16 years to get the mayor’s salary back to where it was intended to be “as the top salary in the city.”

Whether it is or not, Homrighausen said he doesn’t look at it that close. “I enjoy what I’m doing,” he said. “Salary is an added benefit.”